This invention relates to the field of clamshell buckets and particularly to single line clamshell buckets.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,934,917 and the prior art cited and mentioned therein disclosed single line operated clamshell buckets. While such buckets are desirable in that they are single line operated, they have had disadvantages with respect to the latching mechanism. This mechanism was subject to excessive wear, impact damage, spring failure and the like due to the frequent cycles of operation. In operation, the desired latching and releasing actions were not positively assured due to frequent misalignment.